Video games hardly have the best track record when it comes to being adapted into feature film form. Let's face it… They're almost all terrible, with one having to put more thought into arriving at one that was somewhat serviceable than they would in running off a list of the bad ones.
Every time one of these projects are announced, we all get together and collectively cross our fingers that this time might be different, but, in the end, we all wind up walking away disappointed, wondering how we let ourselves be fooled again. There are a number of projects on the horizon – ASSASSIN'S CREED, WARCRAFT and SPLINTER CELL, among others – that have gamers believing they might see a good video game movie once in their lifetime. Game publishers keep looking for new ways to expand their popular titles, bringing them to the big screen as a new source of revenue for them but also a way to grow their audiences. However, while they all jockey for position to be the one to do this transition correctly, Nintendo, one of the industry's giants, has remained on the sidelines.
Now it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that they've maintained their distance from Hollywood ever since the great SUPER MARIO BROS. debacle of 1993, but the times may be a-changin'. Nintendo might be ready to jump back into the movie-making business as the company looks to move beyond only making video games.
In the company's June earning, a little-noted statement was made about taking a more active approach in visual content production and character merchandising, but now Nintendo is taking greater steps forward to do something large with Nintendo’s Software Planning & Development (SPD) Division overseeing any advances Hollywood might make in bringing another of their IPs to the big screen after all these years.
The SPD division is headed up by Shigeru Miyamoto, the man responsible for many of Nintendo's creative achievements over the years, and, with Shinya Takahashi, general manager of Nintendo SPD, by his side, something could happen sooner rather than never.
"As we look more broadly at what is Nintendo’s role as an entertainment company, we’re starting to think more and more about how movies can fit in with that—and we’ll potentially be looking at things like movies in the future."
That doesn't mean Nintendo is ready to stamp their seal of approval on a SUPER MARIO BROS. reboot or that those rumors of a LEGEND OF ZELDA live-action series on Netflix are going to bear any fruit, but it does mean the company is showing signs of moving off their stance of doing no movies at all… or at the very least of doing more than licensing out their characters for cameos in films like WRECK-IT RALPH or PIXELS.
I doubt it'll be anything like this though…